Luna's Cheering Charm
by glanmire
Summary: How Luna copes at Hogwarts.
1. Chapter 1

Luna read a lot of books. Her first year, she'd only brought five or six with her, lining the bottom of her trunk. That was kind of a bad year because she'd had to read them over and over until the words came to her in her sleep.

There wasn't much else to do after you finished homework for the evening and night. She sat in the common room sometimes, but everyone seemed to have something else to do, someone else to talk to, and it wasn't very enjoyable.

She preferred climbing up into her bed early, before the other girls got there, and reading.

There wasn't much fiction in the wizarding world - unless you counted kid's books like Tales of Beedle the Bard - and sometimes she found it exhausting reading non-fiction. Goblin wars and Hogwarts A History were okay, she supposed, but she liked a bit of escapism.

So she read muggle-books. Her muggle-studies teacher was thrilled, and recommended more and more to her. They were mostly good, but it was a little maddening when the plot could have been resolved so quickly with magic.

She had planned on reading tonight, because she had lots of spare time, like most nights really. Her books had been stacked by her bed before dinner, but when she got back they were all gone. That was a bit disappointing, but she tried not to let it get her down.

She decided to experiment with the stars her father had got her for her birthday instead. They glowed softly, and she could pin them on the ceiling over her bed, so that she could read at nighttime without pestering the other girls. That would be good.

Luna wanted the stars to float like the candles in the Great Hall though, not lie flat against the ceiling, so she tried "Wingardium Leviosa" first. They levitated nicely, but that wouldn't hold. She tried body-binding them into place, "Petrificus Totalus!", but that only worked on living things she found out fast enough. Interesting.

The non-verbal "Levicorpus" had no effect either, but that one was difficult, so it might have worked for a better witch than her.

She closed her eyes and thought about it. She remembered something Harry had told her about the maze, how he'd been suspended upside-down until he took another step. A limbo mist.

She cast the spell easily, directed it onto over an area above her, and then spent a few happy minutes lying on her bed, tossing the stars up and into the mist. They flew above her head, and stayed suspended, albeit upside-down, and murmured among themselves.

That made her smile, and she felt brave enough to face the common-room, in search of more books.

Cho was talking to a friend excitedly by the window, and Luna tried them first.

"Do you have any books I could borrow?" she asked, perhaps a bit suddenly, because Cho jumped a little like she didn't know Luna was there.

"Oh. Umm, I've got my books for class, but you've already read those I'd say...". Cho bit her lip. "I don't have anything else, I'm sorry Luna." she said sincerely. Her friend shook her head at Luna and then continued their conversation. Luna stood there for a moment, but it seemed like that was that, so she left again.

She went around the whole common-room, getting different apologetic responses from different people. Most were nice about it, like Cho, but she still ended up returning to her room empty handed. No one mentioned the missing books. It was okay. They'd come back eventually.

She couldn't help but feel bit upset still though, and caved in and cast a cheering charm on herself. It had worked really well the first time she'd tried it, but now they only kind of evened her out. The spell washed over her and it felt like a gentle tickle, tracing down her back, warm and embracing her.

She smiled again under the starlight, but felt a little hollow still.


	2. Chapter 2

Cho was an expert at crying quietly. She honed her craft meticulously, with the finesse and skill of a master craftsman.  
She sobbed silently most nights, her mouth pressed against her pillow, stopping herself from shaking as much as she could.

Sometimes she didn't cry though. Sometimes she would just lie in her bed, and exhaustion would take her, like waves. She couldn't move - it was more than apathy, it was like an invisible hand was holding her down, crushing her.

She found herself procrastinating things that she actually wanted to do; going to DA meetings, doing her Transfiguration homework.  
Cho had many little tricks to motivate herself, like not eating for hours before going to bed, so that her hunger would force her to get out of bed, but everything was by-the-moment, just getting through the hours.  
She wanted to be happy, she really did, but it was like a dementor was hiding in her shadow, eating away at her while her back was turned.

Tonight was not a sobbing night. Tonight was one where she stared at the ceiling, completely still, her body frozen like she was under a body binding spell, images streaking across her mind.

- Harry was holding Cedric's dead body and laughing like a madman, his eyes red-

"Cho?" a voice asked dreamily from the darkness.

Cho wanted to reply, but it seemed so difficult. Wouldn't it be so much easier to just lie there and let the voice go away? She stayed silent.

- she was dancing with Cedric at the Yule Ball, and then his flesh rotted away and he smiled at her, his eyes hollow, dead-

"Cho?" the voice persisted, and then a very real, very tangible weight was beside her on the bed.

"I have bad dreams too sometimes," the voice said, "Don't worry about it. They'll pass". It was Luna.

- Harry was holding out his hand, and Cho took it, but his fingers turned to claws and they dug into her hand 'till she bled-

Luna was still talking. "Would you like me to tell you a story? My mum used to do that for me, you know, before she died. It helped."

Cho nodded slowly in the darkness, though it was exhausting to do so.

"Well, there's a lovely little town, nestled into the American desert, and it's one of the most magical places on earth."

Luna paused, and squirmed a little so that she was lying side by side with Cho, and then continued, her voice low.

"It's called Night Vale you see, and it's actually a muggle town, but magic is bursting out of the seams of it. There's a dog park that even the muggles know not to go into, and they're right, because dementors have infested it."  
The muggles call them the hooded figures, it's quite apt really. There's also been dragon sightings, and the people tried to vote the dragon, Hiram, in for mayor."

Cho might have laughed at that a year ago but now she simply listened.

"Khoshekh is the name of a cat that got caught in a hovering spell- you know the way a cold draft comes into a room sometimes? well sometimes magic kind of streams through too, my Dad wrote an article all about it-"

Cho let her breathing slow a little so that it matched that of the sleeping girls around her, and she closed her eyes, listening.

Luna spoke of glowing clouds and faceless women, of two-headed teenagers and tiny underground civilisations. Cho did not know what she thought about all this, but she let pictures from Luna's story fill her mind, and that night she dreamed of a man talking on the radio, telling her goodnight.

She awoke the next day and Luna was gone, like she had never been there. Cho got out of bed, and it didn't seem so daunting today. She had a DA meeting tonight. She would be okay.


End file.
